Quinn Epperly fits the body to the 40-foot Spirit of America
Earl Heath has lived in Wendover, Utah, all his life, and he has seen the best of the LSR cars come and go. He owns the Western Motel and Cafe and the service station where most of the work is done on the race cars. He helps the state of Utah manage the Salt Flats. In two words he is the resident expert on all matters pertaining to land speed racing.
When he came out of his restaurant to see the Spirit of America, I knew that his pronouncement would be picked up by Salt Lake City newspapers and relayed to the world press. He took one look at the car, slapped his forehead, and said, "You just set the competition back 30 years." That kind of newspaper copy we could use.
We took all of the equipment out to the Flats and got the crew started setting up camp. It was a pretty big job: we had a 40-foot van loaded with tools and equipment, the car had to be wheeled off the flat-bed trailer it was on, and the generator truck had to be unloaded. I guess Earl was right. Most LSR attempts had been so much of a shoestring nature that this looked like Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey had just rolled into town. When the crew got the striped tent set up, the townspeople would be convinced that it was a circus.
QThe trip was a little awesome to me, too. For one thing, it was the first time I had ever stayed in a motel in Wendover. So far as I was concerned, Salt Flats racing was a sleep in the car or on the ground proposition--we could be close to the cars and the action that way, we had reasoned. Actually, it had been all we could afford in those less affluent days.
In 1961, however, we moved into the Wendover Motel, and I was staggered to learn that we actually occupied 21 rooms--engineers, public relations men, and the crew of the Spirit. I had a large, second-floor, double room on the end. I went in and plopped down in the chair beside the bed. What luxury! My sleeping on the Flats days had ended. I had never admitted it even to myself before, but it used to get pretty cold out there at night.
When I could tear myself away from the room, I decided to take a walk. A walk in Wendover is usually a fairly short affair because there really isn't much to the town. What there is, however, is picturesque and is completely out of place as a setting for land speed racing. The town looks as if it's just popped right out of every Western movie you've ever seen. I'm still convinced that most of them were filmed there, although Earl Heath claims they weren't. The feeling is there--particularly at the railroad station.
Craig and crew get the car ready for a shot at the
record
The station is a squat, one-story, frame building that had to be moved there from the Twentieth Century-Fox lot. I always expected the 5:20 to come rolling in with steam hissing out of wherever it is that steam hisses from. Ava Gardner would step down from one of the cars, and Spencer Tracy would amble out of the station and say, "Help you, ma'am?" "It's the Kelly place I'm looking for," she would purr. He'd answer, "If you'll wait right there, I'll hitch up the buckboard and take you out myself."
The rest of the town fit in pretty well. There were a lot of dirt streets and adobe houses, and the mountains and foothills came right down into the town. Main Street was a little different. The horseless carriages that boiled into town from the 110-mile drive across the Great Salt Lake Desert were in desperate need of service stations. And service stations there were along Main Street--Route 40. There were no sidewalks, just driveways into the gas stations. The motels and the gambling casino were down at the end of Main Street--just across the border in Wendover, Nevada. The State Line Casino was mecca, the only escape from boredom.
It was as if all of these things were unfolding for me for the first time. Before, I had seen nothing but race cars and hot-rodders.
By the time I stepped back through the looking glass, some of the crew had returned from the Salt Flats. They had encountered some problems with the engine, and Rod had decided that we should take the car over to the nearly abandoned Wendover Air Force Base and work on it there. The wind was blowing fairly hard on the Flats; so it would be a lot better to take the side panels off in a hangar. The walls would keep the salt from blowing into the bearings and other exposed parts while Rod and his crew were making the necessary adjustments.
Finally, we got the engine running perfectly and headed for the Salt Flats. It was late in the afternoon, August 18. I knew that we had to hurry to get the car off the trailer if I expected to make a run that day. However, things ran smoothly and the car was wheeled to the International Course, the smoothest stretch of salt that could be found on the great expanse of the flat, white saline basin.
The Spirit of America arrives at the Salt Flats in
1962
The Flats are a geological freak of nature, duplicated in only a few other places throughout the world. The one in Utah, moreover, is larger than most and smoother, and therefore faster, than any other. It had taken eons of time for nature to produce the great salt bed. The spring runoff from the mountain changes the surface yearly. Each spring, in fact, state road crews from the state of Utah, which owns the Flats, select the best eleven miles for a course. The crews then take care of it throughout the season, which usually doesn't start until August, after the summer rains, and continues until September, as a rule. Sometimes the season is shorter if storms move in early; occasionally it is longer. Sometimes there is no season at all--the surface stays flooded all year from unusually heavy spring and summer downfalls.
Chute-maker Jack Carter packs a chute into its housing as
part of the braking
system
Once the weather breaks and the course is selected, the United States Auto Club moves a timing shack and miles of wire onto the salt. The wire is necessary to set up the timing lights and radio equipment. USAC is the official timing body, and all LSR cars must use its services to certify the speeds for a world record.
The eleven-mile course is divided into three sections, a five-mile buildup, a measured mile where timing takes place and average speed is calculated, and a five-mile section for stopping the car. A single black line distinguishes the course from the rest of the similar-looking terrain. It is necessary to make a run through the measured mile in each direction for an official record. The average time of the two runs is calculated to determine the official speed.
USAC submits the time to either the Fédération Internationale Automobile or the Fédération Internationale Motocycliste for world record sanctioning. The former sanctions four-wheeled vehicles; the latter, those with fewer than four wheels. So, technically, the Spirit was a motorcycle, but that didn't bother me. All I wanted was to go faster than anybody else had ever gone. A 38-foot, 10,000-horsepower motorcycle would be fine, thank you.
Joe Petrali, chief timer for USAC, was at the starting line at the north end of the course, where the car sat. "The salt is good this year, Craig," he said. "There are a few rough spots in the buildup, but the measured mile is smooth and you should have no trouble with the south end of the course." I needed the assurance. Of course, I had driven over the track, but it needed an experienced eye to tell whether the course was good.
The jet car is towed to the firing
line
I thanked Joe and walked toward the Spirit. The car was so big that it took a step ladder for me to get into the cockpit. As I mounted the first few steps I thought to myself, "This is a far cry from your first trip here." I looked at the tail of the car, where the jet blast would come out, and wondered for a fraction of a second what I was doing there. The wonder passed quickly and I eased into the seat, which had been molded to fit my body, and slipped the shoulder harness into place.
I looked around the car and then down to the ground. The instrument-laden panel stared back at me as I glanced around the cockpit. I looked at the horde of people standing around waiting for me to get the show on the road, and I thought, "So this is what the big league looks like."
I slipped my helmet on and buckled the strap. Nye, a crew member, who had come up the ladder, leaned into the cockpit and helped me fasten my breathing mask into place. In case of fire, the foam that would be automatically released, filling the cockpit, would make breathing impossible. I took a deep breath, and the cool compressed dry air filled my lungs. Everything had started to look unreal and mechanical.
The plan was to blast off at full power and zap right up to about 150 or 200, trying the two brake pedals to see if the steering was properly adjusted. Then, if all went well, I would back off the throttle and hold it at 200 mph for a mile or two, and try the front fin to see if it was set right. If everything was still in order, I would make a run back, from north to south for the first leg of the record.
Nye slipped the canopy into place, and I fastened it from the inside with two large twist handles. The stepladder was moved away. The starting generator was in place, and I nodded to Nye. The high-pitched whine of the engine pierced the stillness of the Flats and I sat there. Now, it was just me and my car. I thought of all of the years I had spent getting there. It had all started with a bicycle; I had at last reached the three-wheeler stage.
I held the car with the brakes and advanced the hand throttle to 70 percent power. I took a deep breath of air, gave the okay sign, and took my feet off the brakes. The car started to move, and I shoved the throttle to 100 percent power.
I thought I had known what acceleration was before, but when I shoved that throttle forward, the force was astounding. I was glued to the seat and I had the sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach that you get in a car when you go over a big dip in the road at high speed. The only difference was that this feeling just stayed there, like I was going over the biggest dip in the world--maybe the Grand Canyon.
A
confident Craig Breedlove strides away from a practice
run
In a second or two I was over the initial sensation, and I realized that the car was veering off the track to the right. I stepped on the left brake; the car zoomed right back on the track and off the left side of the course. I hit the right brake, and the whole thing repeated itself. It was like a series of zigzags, back and forth. I tried the fin, and nothing happened. By then I was up to about 240 mph and out of control. I was completely over my head and hanging onto the wheel for dear life: so I reached over and slammed the engine off.
I sat there and said to myself, "What is going on?" The car had absolutely gotten away from me. I hadn't had any control over it at all. I was totally bewildered and mad, and so completely disappointed that I could have cried.
Rod was one of the first to get to the car. "What's wrong? Why did you shut it off?" he asked.
I told him that nothing worked. "The brakes didn't work, the fin didn't work, nothing," I said. He didn't believe it.
"They had to work," he screamed.
"Well, I'm telling you right now they didn't," I answered. "I was out there still trying to steer it with the brakes at 240. The fin didn't work."
We quit for the day and went back to the motel. I sat there in my room and tried to go over everything that could have gone wrong. I finally decided that I was going to have to start from the very bottom and get used to the car. It would be better to start tomorrow by idling the car down the salt and then, little by little, up the power output until we found out what was causing the problems. I went over to see Rod, and he agreed.
This car had 10,000 horsepower--the average Indianapolis car has 500 and a hot passenger car 350--and I had started running it flat out. I couldn't tell what was happening, because of the tremendous force the acceleration had placed on everything. I did well, I felt, to hang on, let alone diagnose any problems.
So, the next morning I idled the car down the Flat at about 90 or 100 mph, and when it started off to the right, I stepped on the left brake. It would start left, and then it might stop or arbitrarily decide to go right again. It was inconsistent despite the fact that the crew made every adjustment they could think of.
The hassle began to get out of hand, and Rod seemed to feel as if his golden chance as a designer was in jeopardy. He just sort of lost touch with finding the problem and spent more time trying to justify the design than trying to find out what was wrong.
We went through a solid week of this until the morale of the crew was completely shot. Rod was implying that I had lost my nerve and that this was the problem. The crew--and the sponsors--didn't know what to believe. I practically had a mutiny on my hands.
Then Nye discovered that a bearing that held the front wheel yoke in position was sliding back and forth in its housing, allowing the wheel to turn whatever way it wanted. The bearing was behaving like a swivel caster, and the wheel turned however it wanted to turn. The problem had been difficult to diagnose only because the condition didn't exist when the car was at rest, with all of the weight on the front wheel.
The discovery of the fault came all but too late. The whole thing had turned into a nightmare, and I had almost lost control of the situation. The whole organization was a shambles. Even finding the problem didn't help much, because the crew no longer wanted to do anything.
Never before had I been in a situation in which everybody was upset. I didn't know whether they were uptight with me or the car or what, but I did think that they were all calling me "chicken" behind my back. That was about to drive me nuts. I had dreamed of this opportunity all of my life, and now I was about to lose it. I knew that I had to get over my persecution complex somehow, or it was all over. Somehow I mustered up the necessary courage, smiled, and got back in the car. I knew it was hopeless, but I wasn't going to give in. I wasn't going to go down with the bat on my shoulder this time.
I made a few more runs after correcting the problem, but the fin still wouldn't steer the car. It was hopeless. At this point, Rod called me a liar and said that I was steering the car off the course on purpose, just to make him and his design look bad.
I told him, "The car doesn't take an ignition key; so get in and drive it yourself."
He said, "I would, but I can't fit in it." That was the first point at which we had agreed in two weeks.
In the meantime Glenn Leasher had arrived and was warming up in the bullpen. Yet, there I was with a $100,000 car and two of the largest corporations in the world behind me, and I couldn't make it. The Spirit had plenty of power, it was clean, and the drag factor was low enough for the car to break the record, but I couldn't steer it. All I could envision was Leasher moving in with this hot rod with an old Ford axle under it and, just because his front wheels would steer the car, clipping off the record.
On the other hand, I could see only disaster if we continued. If we stayed on while Leasher was there, the press would make us look like a bunch of donkeys; so I went to Bill Lawler of Shell and told him I wanted to take the car home and put steering in it.
I said, "You can listen to Rod if you want to, but I've spent three years of my life working on this car for one purpose--to break the land speed record. I won't stay up here and see Shell and Goodyear made fools of by a car built in some guy's backyard--just because he can steer it. I want to go home and fix the steering right, and come back. Otherwise I'm stepping out of it."
As usual, Bill heard me out. When I had finished, he stared out across the Salt Flats and said, "Okay, that's it. We're going home."
Just as we were ready to put the car on the trailer, one of the guys looked at the linkage that went to the front fin and found out that it had somehow been put into an adjustment that allowed it to move only about half an inch, lock to lock. The fin had been immobile during the whole time and no one had checked it. It was that simple: no one had looked at it. The whole program had been blown when I allowed someone else to step in and take over my project. That simple fact burned deep impressions into my mind, and I vowed that it would never happen again.
We made one more run with the fin in a high ratio, and I found that I could get some steering but it was marginal. Certainly, there was insufficient improvement to continue the run. The whole operation had to be demolished. We loaded up the car and started for home.
We were on the San Bernadino Freeway just outside of Los Angeles when we heard the news on the truck radio. Glenn Leasher had crashed and was dead. Suddenly the whole jet car program seemed to be insanity. I slumped over the wheel with tears in my eyes.
